


This is me trying

by KeepGoing



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Blowjobs, Bottom!Mickey, Complete rewrite, Explicit sexual scenes, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Ian takes his pills, Ian waits, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Monica Gallagher, Mickey doesn't go to jail, Mickey grows up, Mickey is having a hard time forgiving and forgetting, Rimming, bitch, hurt!Ian, mentions of bi-polar, picks up at the breakup scene, season 5/6 rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeepGoing/pseuds/KeepGoing
Summary: As Ian stands on his front porch breaking up with Mickey at the end of Season 5, Sammi comes after Mickey with the gun, but instead of Ian not doing anything, he steps in to try and help and in the process gets himself shot. But when he wakes up, he doesn't remember anything that happened after he was released into Monica's care from the military prison. He doesn't remember breaking up with Mickey, but Mickey can't forget it happened. He should be happy Ian doesn't remember it, but he relives it over and over again in his head, and Ian doesn't understand why Mickey is pulling away from him.This is how they find their way back to each other and Mickey begins to trust again.**This fic is now complete**
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 62
Kudos: 350





	1. But I'm here in your doorway

**Author's Note:**

> It always bothered me that Ian just let Sammi try and shot Mickey and let him run off while getting shot at and didn't do anything to help. I get he was sick, and had just broken up with Mickey, but Sammi WAS the reason the MP's picked him up and I don't know. It just always bothered me. So I fixed it. But I wouldn't be me without a little angst and hurt/comfort thrown in there. 
> 
> I will updating this weekly. Honestly I haven't decided how long this one is going to be yet. I have a ton of ideas for this fic. So I guess I just will see how far I take this one. 
> 
> As always comments are LOVE and I hope you guys enjoy this journey with me.

  
  
  
**_I didn't know if you'd care if I came back  
I have a lot of regrets about that_**  
  
“Fuck.” 

It’s barely a whisper out of Mickey’s mouth and he can’t break they eye contact he’s trying to keep with Ian’s glazed over eyes. He keeps searching for something in them; a lie, a hint of regret. Something…anything to tell Mickey that these past 3 years weren't for nothing. That he didn’t make it all up in his head. That what he felt; what he thought Ian felt; didn’t just die with Ian’s only answer of a “yup” that came out with such juvenile harshness, to Mickey’s question. The question of, after everything, after surviving everything together; juvie, pedophile bosses and geriatric viagroids, Frank, psycho homophobic fathers, Russian whores, unwanted children, beatings, rapes, stolen babies, weeks of not getting out of bed, diagnosis’s, pill bottles; everything, that this was it for them. The end. Before they could even really begin. 

But Ian’s got nothing behind his eyes but his truth, and his truth is that it was all for nothing. Because there’s nothing left here for them. Just a scattering of bad memories that fill Ian’s head, spilling out like the blood from a wound, and Mickey can't clean it up fast enough to show him that it’s just a small cut, nothing that won't heal with time. But Ian doesn’t see that, he doesn’t see anything, but the end. There’s no beginning, or middle flickering back in Ian’s eyes. 

Mickey sees nothing. There’s nothing left. And Mickey’s ‘I love you’ that flowed from his mouth so easily, was too late. He did everything too late with Ian, and now he’s paying the ultimate price. He lost him. And it makes Mickey wonder if he ever really had him at all. 

Mickey can hear his name being shouted from somewhere in the distance, but he’s so scared to take his eyes off Ian in the hopes that maybe, just fucking maybe, he will see some emotion at all in Ian other than the tears that Mickey knows are more about the things Ian is feeling within himself, about himself, instead of anything he feels for Mickey. Because in this moment, Ian feels nothing for Mickey. 

“Mickey!” 

Mickey finally turns toward the sound of the voice calling his name, tearing his eyes off Ian’s tear stained face. It’s a blur, at first, his own tears causing everything to kaleidoscope in the distance. 

“Holy shit.” Mickey whispers slowly when he realizes who is walking toward him. 

“Is that Sammi?” Ian mutters. She’s stalking toward them and then Mickey sees it. 

“She’s got a fucking gun.” Mickey feels Ian step closer to him but he extends his arm to push Ian back with his palm against his chest. “Don’t Ian.” 

She’s getting closer and Mickey doesn’t know if he should run or protect Ian. But Ian isn't even his to protect anymore but the need is still there; overwhelming his entire body and mind. Ian brushes his hand off his chest and as Sammi brings the gun up Mickey grabs for Ian’s wrist to pull him behind him but Ian is a strong fucker and he pushes Mickey back with his shoulder and then it's like time stops and speeds up all in seconds when the gun goes off. 

Mickey puts his arms around Ian and they fall to the ground, Ian landing on top of him with an ‘oof’ on the sidewalk. Mickey groans, forgetting how heavy this fucker can be when all his weight is on top of him. He can hear screaming from inside the house; it sounds like Fiona but Mickey can't tell because it's like he’s underwater and there’s this loud whooshing in his ears and he can hear people yelling from a distance and then sirens and he doesn’t know exactly how much time has passed when Ian finally leans up, just slightly and looks down at Mickey, eyes searching his face and chest. 

“You’re bleeding.” Ian murmurs and Mickey presses his chin down to his chest and see’s blood spatters on his jacket. But it's not his blood. He looks back up at the boy who just minutes ago shattered his entire world to find the eyes that were filled with tears and nothingness, now shimmering with grogginess and sliding shut. 

“No, no, NO! Ian!” Mickey pushes himself up and onto his knees and grabs onto Ian’s now almost completely limp body in his. Mickey’s hand wraps around his shoulder and when he pulls it back, it's soaked with blood. Mickey isn't the one bleeding. 

It’s Ian. 

“NO! Ian! Someone help us! Someone call 911! NOW!” Mickey pulls Ian against him; his body now completely void of movement, and wraps his hand hard against the wound spilling blood all over himself and the concrete. 

Fiona comes bursting out the front door and screams Ian’s name and is at their sides instantly and she too wraps her hands around Ian’s shoulder, trying to stop the bullet wound from pouring out blood everywhere. Mickey can see Sammi being slammed against the ground in the distance, but his eyes can't really focus on anything around him. All he sees is Red. Red blood. Red hair. Red eyes from tears. All around him. V is now there, wrapping the jacket she had on around Ian’s shoulder as best as she can and Mickey wonders why he hadn't thought of that. 

“Are you hit? MICKEY! Are you shot too?” Fiona is in his face and Mickey blinks at her and he wonders if he is. He can only shake his head at her and then the EMT’s are there and they are trying to lay Ian on the ground but Mickey still has his arms around him and he knows they are saying things to him and Fiona is touching his wrist, telling him to let Ian go, but he can't move. He literally can't make himself move. Fiona and V both have to grab Mickey back by his shoulders and he falls back on his ass on the sidewalk and watches as the EMT’s rip Ian’s flannel off his body and they are pumping air into his lungs with that plastic beehive looking thing and Fiona still has her arms wrapped around him and Mickey’s putting all his weight on her as he leans against her front and V has a hand on his arm and it’s hot and steadying and he just watches and watches in silence as they load Ian onto a gurney and into the back of the ambulance. 

“Are you coming?” Fiona asks when she stands and Mickey now has to support his own weight and he’s just staring at the ambulance and he can't move and he doesn’t even feel like he’s breathing. This is his fault. If Ian dies... 

“Mickey!” Fiona is in his face now, kneeling down in front of him and her soft hands are on his cold face and he blinks at her, trying to focus. “Are you coming?” 

He can't answer her. Words are stuck in his throat and all he can smell is copper and there’s blood everywhere and lights are flickering somewhere in the distance and he’s not breathing. Ian’s not breathing. Mickey’s not breathing. How is Fiona breathing? 

She gives up and he watches as she hops in the back of the ambulance and he’s left alone on the sidewalk with V still knelt down beside him and they watch as it pulls away and the sirens are so loud and Mickey winces. 

“Mickey.” V is whispering right in his ear and he blinks a few times as the sirens grow further and further away and he finally turns to look at her. She's blurry; when did he start crying? And she gives him a sad look and stands, grabbing him underneath his arms to pull him to his feet. “Come on. Come with me to the hospital.” 

She grabs his wrist to start walking but his feet won't move from the spot where the concrete is stained with red and he looks down at it. It's on his shoes and his jeans and the wrist she’s holding is attached to a hand covered in it. 

“It’s my fault.” He whispers. 

“No, come on. Let’s go. He’s gonna need you.” V tugs on him and his knees won't support his body and he stumbles and she wraps her arm around his shoulders and now she has blood on her, Ian’s blood and she’s shushing him and he doesn’t deserve such empathy. 

“He doesn’t want me. He told me, it's over.” 

But V isn't listening. She’s just walking Mickey carefully away from the stained concrete and toward her house. There are cops and they are calling for him but it's garbled and V yells something to them and Mickey knows they want answers to questions he can't answer right now because the bottom line is this is his fault. He should just turn himself in. Tell them what he did that caused this. 

But V won't let go of him and he knows this must be some kind of shock because as soon as the car door closes and she reaches over to put his seatbelt on him, the tears come in buckets down his face and they are red too.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~  
  
 ** _Could've followed my fears all the way down  
And maybe I don't quite know what to say   
But I'm here in your doorway_**  
  
 _Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

Mickey’s been keeping a rhythm in his head to the machines and he wonders why some emo band hasn’t made a song yet to that sound. He’s been having weird thoughts lately. Maybe to keep his mind off the situation in front of him. He doesn’t know. Maybe it's from the lack of sleep. It doesn’t matter really, does it? 

It's been 3 days. 

Ian still isn't awake. 

It's not from the gunshot. It was a pretty clean wound. They removed the bullet but the amount of blood he lost is what’s keeping him unconscious. Mickey answered all the cops questions; deciding after much heated discussions with Fiona and Lip that telling them what he did to Sammi to make her come after him with a gun was the worst thing he could do and they would vouch for him, especially if it meant keeping Debbie out of trouble because yeah, they weren't too happy to learn she was involved. So, he just told them over and over that Sammi was nuts and she had a lot of issues with the Gallagher's and whatever story she was spewing about Mickey drugging her and locking her in a storage container was just utter bullshit. 

They bought it. Because they caught her with the gun and she’s obviously fucking crazy and they have a 17-year-old shot and that’s more important than some story from an obvious nutcase. 

So once the cops got what they wanted and the surgeons worked their magic and the waiting room was filled with all the Gallagher's, Mickey finally got to see Ian. He looked pale, paler than normal and his freckles which had already started to fade from the summer going into the deep winter months, seemed darker now against his pale skin. His shoulder is bandaged and they are giving Ian his bi-polar medication through injections, which Mickey knows Ian is gonna be pissed about when he wakes up because he doesn’t want to take the meds but Fiona talked extensively with the doctors about Ian’s disorder and that maybe the whole reason he jumped in front of the bullet meant for Mickey was due to the mania. 

Mickey has to believe that’s the reason. Because he knows it's not because Ian cared that Mickey was about to get shot. Because there was nothing in Ian’s eyes when he was breaking Mickey’s world into a million little pieces. He didn’t care. The doctors had asked if Ian was suicidal. Was this on purpose? Fiona looked at Mickey with hope in her eyes that maybe he had an answer to that, but he just shrugged because the truth is, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore. 

He doesn’t know Ian like he thought he did. 

Maybe he never did. 

Mickey had called Mandy and told her what happened. He told her not to come when she insisted, she’d been on the next bus, telling her if anything changes, he’d let her know. Changes as in if Ian doesn’t make it. She knew that’s what he meant. It’s what they are all thinking. Because Ian hasn’t woken up and it's been 3 days and Mickey hasn’t slept and neither has Fiona or Lip and Lip looks like he’s been drunk for more than 3 days, it looks more like 3 years, and Fiona just keeps drinking coffee like it’s the only thing running through her veins right now and Mickey’s smoked 4 packs of cigarettes and he still has blood stained clothes on and he refuses to leave the hospital because... 

They are all thinking it. What if? 

So, on the fourth day Mickey decides it's time to go home. He needs a shower; he feels like it's 3 years ago, before Ian, when being clean wasn’t up on his priority list. Before he had someone to be clean for. And the bloodied clothes he’s been wearing, like some kind of morbid badge of honor, are hard and disgusting against his dirty body. 

Svetlana is standing in the hallway when Mickey gets out of the shower, her baby…their baby against her hip. 

“It has been 4 days.” 

“Good for you, you can count.” He brushes past her and into his room. 

“Orange boy dead?” 

Mickey turns sharply. “Shut your fucking whore mouth.” He points his finger at her, teeth gritted. 

“He stole baby. I do not care if he lives or dies.” 

“Well, nobody fucking asked what you care about.” 

Mickey slams the bedroom door in her face and sits on the bed, his towel loose around his waist. He should eat. And sleep. But he can't seem to do anything but just stare at the back of his bedroom door. 

Ian could still die. Ian could not ever wake up. Ian could end up a fucking vegetable and then his family will have to make the decision about pulling the plug and donating his fucking organs and all Mickey can think about is how people have eye transplants and he can't imagine being in line at the fucking liquor store and see Ian’s eyes in someone else's fucking face. 

Mickey digs the heels of his palms into his own eye sockets to stop the tears that are forming because it didn’t matter if Ian didn’t want him anymore, he just can't live in a world that doesn’t have Ian in it, somewhere out there, even without Mickey, living his fucking life. 

Mickey doesn’t remember falling asleep but when his cellphone starts ringing it's dark outside his bedroom window and he’s laying sideways on his bed, towel now bunched around his naked frame. He fumbles for the phone and croaks a form of ‘yeah’ into it. 

“Mick? He…uh. He’s awake.” 

Mickey sits up, too fast because his vision goes blurry and he suddenly feels like he’s gonna vomit. 

“He okay?” Mickey can hear voices in the distance on the other end of the phone and Lip chuckles into the phone. 

“Yeah, he’s good man. Cracking jokes. He’s real good.” There’s a pause and Lip clears his throat. “He’s asking for you. Told him you went home to shower. He wants to see you.” 

Mickey can feel the pain start to radiate through his chest and the tears are back again and he realizes how much he just can't do this. Any of this. 

“No, he doesn’t. Trust me, man. He told me he was dumpin me. Right before. He’s just being polite and shit.” 

“Mickey, listen to me. He doesn’t remember any of that. Doesn’t remember being with Monica. Nothing. He thinks…” 

He thinks they are still together. 

Mickey stands, pacing back and forth in his room, trying to control his breathing and figure out what the fuck is going on. What is it? Some kind of weird amnesia? How can Ian not remember breaking up with him? All the shit he spewed out at Mickey on that front porch. How he pretty much scoffed at Mickey’s ‘I love you’ like it was nothing. Like it hadn't taken Mickey 3 fucking years to say it. 

“So, what now?” Mickey finally breathes out. He honestly can't believe he’s even having a discussion like this with Lip of all people. Lip was the only person he had told about what happened right before Sammi pulled that gun while they chain smoked outside the hospital that first night at 2AM. Lip stayed oddly quiet while Mickey talked and all Lip could muster in the form of consoling was that Ian was sick. And he probably didn’t mean any of it. It didn’t make Mickey feel any better then and now he doesn’t know how he fucking feels now. About anything. 

“Now, you come here and see him. Isn't this what you want? You want to be with him, don’t you? I mean, he doesn’t remember. And he’s asking for you. Which means he probably didn’t mean any of it. There are meds in his system which means he’s himself and he’s not manic. And he wants you. So, let it be for now, okay?” 

Mickey lets out a long sigh and opens a drawer, pulling out clean boxers. “I’ll be there soon.”  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
 ** _And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad  
I have a lot of regrets about that_**  
  
By the time Mickey arrives, visiting hours are long over for the ICU but the nurse he likes is on duty tonight and her eyes light up when she sees him. She smiles at him, because yeah, Ian’s fucking awake and nods at him as he shuffles past her. He stands outside Ian’s glass sliding doors and watches Ian; his head back against the pillow, bandage still on his shoulder and wires coming out of his body but he looks less pale and there’s an empty food tray next to the bed which means he ate, because he’s fucking awake and alive. 

And Mickey has never felt more dead on his feet. 

“He keeps asking for you. ‘Where’s Mick? Did Mick say when he was coming back? Is Mick okay?’ He won't shut up. He really loves you.” That nurse is behind him now and she’s looking thoughtfully at Ian and back at you with little fucking heart eyes like he and Ian are some sort of South Side romance and she doesn’t know shit because if she really knew... 

“He’s a bit dramatic.” Mickey finally says and she laughs softly. 

“You shouldn’t keep him waiting.” 

Yeah, she would think that. She would think that Ian deserves so much and maybe he does but Mickey is broken, he’s fucking broken, because even if Ian doesn’t remember what happened on that sidewalk; every fucking detail; Mickey does. He remembers the words and the blood and the sirens and the way Ian stopped breathing. And that’s something Mickey may ever forget. 

Mickey finally slides the glass door open and Ian’s head pops up from the pillow and he’s smiling; Mickey’s fucking smile. The smile that Mickey earned fair and square. A smile Ian took away days ago and is now returning to him like the world didn’t stop spinning for a time. 

“Fuck, there you are. Thought maybe you ran away with someone else.” 

Mickey just stares at him, because it's Ian. It's his Ian. The Ian he remembers before stolen babies and MP’s and ‘take your pills, bitch.’ It’s Ian at the dugouts and in the storage room of the Kash and Grab. It’s Ian nursing a beer and watching movies with him on his ratty old couch. It's Ian, kissing between his shoulder blades as he fucks him slow from behind. 

Ian. 

“I was in blood stained clothes.” Is what Mickey spews out of his mouth and Ian’s smile slowly fades and when Ian reaches his hand out for Mickey to come closer, Mickey wants to cry. He literally wants to buckle and fall to his knees right there and scream and cry until there is nothing left inside him. But he doesn’t, instead moving slowly to Ian’s bedside and curls his fingers inside Ian’s. Ian pulls him down and Mickey goes willingly, half bent over and Ian’s buries his face in the space between Mickey’s neck and shoulder and he inhales deeply, taking Mickey’s smell in like he’s done a million times before. Mickey doesn’t understand why that soothes Ian, but it does. 

“I’m sorry. Everyone told me what happened. I don’t know why or what happened but I’m sorry. I don’t remember. I just...” 

“Shut up, Gallagher.” Mickey mumbles against his shoulder. The only part of his body that’s touching him is Mickey’s mouth against the material of the itchy hospital gown on his shoulder and his fingers white knuckling his, but he’s shaking. He knows he is. 

“You’re okay, right?” Ian whispers. Mickey nods. “Good.” 

Mickey pulls back and stares at Ian and Ian is just smirking and rubbing his thumb over Mickey’s and Mickey doesn’t even know how to act. If this was before, he’d be cracking jokes and making fun of Ian. He’d have kissed him by now. 

But that was before. 

This is now. 

And now everything is different. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“You don’t remember anything?” Mickey doesn’t even recognize his own voice. He feels like a stranger in his own skin. 

Ian frowns and lays his head back against the bed. “No. The last thing I remember the dugouts and then the MP’s grabbing me at the house. Then I woke up here.” 

Mickey pulls his hand back and rubs his hands down his face. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

“Fiona and Lip told me I was in prison. And then I ran off with Monica. I have no idea what happened when I was with her. I don’t remember coming home and Fiona she didn’t even know I was back until she heard the gunshot and came outside and there we were.” 

“Yeah, well. I remember. I remember fucking everything.” Mickey mumbles and turns away from him to stare out the glass doors. He watches as Doctors and nurses and patients go by. He wonders if their stories are as fucked up as his. He wonders if they ever had to work so hard to be happy as he has. He wonders if he will ever be happy again. 

“Tell me. Because it's like I’m missing an entire part of my life. And I know I was manic. And I promise I’m gonna take the pills now, Mick, if that’s what your worried about. Why you’re being so...” 

“So what?” Mickey asks, not looking at him. 

“Distant?” Ian says gently. Mickey huffs out a disgruntled noise from deep in his throat. 

“Right.” 

“Come on, Mick. Talk to me. I know I fucked up okay? But I won't again. I promise.” 

He promises. Ian promises. Right. Until he wakes up tomorrow and suddenly remembers ‘oh right. I broke up with this piece of shit.’ Because bi-polar or not Ian said the words. And he meant them. He meant them in that moment. And Mickey can't forget. 

“We went to see you. At the prison. Fucking guard told us Monica came and got you. We called you, man. I called you for days and I thought you were just fucking gone man. And then you call me and I run all the way to your fucking house and you’re just standing there. No coat and you looked...so fucking lost man. I’d never seen you look so lost.” 

“I’m sorry, Mick. I never should have gone with her. I should have waited for you to come get me. I should have gone home with you.” Ian’s voice is cracking and Mickey knows he’s crying and Mickey wants to climb into that small hospital bed and hold him and tell him everything's going to be okay. That they can get through this. That none of it matters. 

But it does matter. All that shit did happen. And Ian gets the luxury of not remembering any of it while Mickey has to live with it, rolling around in his head, maybe forever. 

“You said shit to me, Ian. You said shit to me that I can’t-” 

“What? What did I say, Mick?” 

Mickey just shakes his head and bites at his bottom lip. He can't do this. He can't be here. 

“I told you I fucking loved you and you just-” Mickey’s voice finally breaks and he rubs his eyes and he needs a fucking cigarette. He needs to get the fuck out of here. 

“You told me you loved me?” There’s a desperation in Ian’s voice. A melody of awe in it. 

“Yeah.” 

“Fuck, Mick. I love you too. So much. I... fuck. I can't believe I don’t remember that.” 

Mickey stops breathing. 

That’s the reaction he wanted on that sidewalk. The reaction he deserved. He turns to find tears streaming down Ian’s face and before he can even think he’s crossing the room and taking Ian’s wet cheeks in his hand and pressing his mouth firm against Ian’s. Ian’s hands come up around the back of Mickey’s head and Ian’s mouth opens, wet and hot against Mickey’s and their tongues slide together and one of them moans, who the fuck cares who, and Mickey knees buckle from the sensation of having Ian here, right here, like this with him. 

Mickey breaks the kiss first, because he forgot how to breathe for a second, and presses his forehead hard against Ian’s. Ian hisses, lowering his arm, the one bandaged and Mickey presses light fingertip touches against it. 

“I’m okay. Just keep forgetting about it, you know? Guess I’m not gonna be able to jerk off for a while.” 

Mickey laughs low. “Poor baby.” 

“Gonna help me, Mick?” 

Mickey swallows thickly and leans back to look in Ian’s eyes. It's all Ian staring back. Not the Ian he saw on that porch. Or the Ian when he couldn’t get out of bed, or Ian in that psych ward. It's just Ian. 

“Sure, Gallagher.” 

Ian smiles and presses another small kiss to Mickey’s lips. “Can you tell me? Can you say it. I need to hear it.” 

Mickey slides his eyes shut and stands, one hand still on Ian’s face. He shakes his head, bringing his lips into his mouth. He can't. He can't do it right now. He’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to. It took him so long to be able to, and now...he knows Ian doesn’t remember. But Mickey can't risk it that it could happen again. He can't go back there again. He can't go through that moment ever again. 

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m just so pissed I don’t remember. You’ll tell me again. I know you will.” Ian is being so calm and patient and understanding and Mickey realizes it’s the meds. Maybe a combo of the pain medication and the fucking Lithium, who the fuck knows. But Ian is pulls and pulls until Mickey never has anything left and he’s not doing that now and Mickey doesn’t know how he feels about it. 

That day at the dugouts, Ian wailed on Mickey because he had gone soft. That he wasn’t that tough South Side piece of trash Ian had originally gotten to drop his fucking pants for. He had changed. And now here Ian was, all full of love and hope and understanding and it's like Ian is 16 years old all over again, before all the bad shit hardened him and he’s looking at Mickey like he used to. And Mickey can't breathe because he doesn't know if he loves it or hates it. 

He doesn’t know anything. 

“You gonna stay?” Ian finally asks. 

Mickey nods and pulls the chair over to the side of the bed. Ian gives him another smile and reaches for the remote attached to the bed. “There’s probably no Segal movies on but I bet there’s a rerun of Law and Order on some channel. I know you have a thing for Chris Meloni.” 

“Fuck off.” Mickey mumbles leaning his arms on the bed next to Ian. Ian reaches out and takes Mickey’s hand in his, like they do it all the time. Like it's their thing when honestly, it really isn't. 

But Mickey will allow it because Ian’s alive and he’s smiling and he doesn’t remember breaking up with Mickey and dismissing Mickey’s ‘I love you’. He knows he’s going to have to tell Ian. He knows that he isn't going to be able to keep this charade up. That Mickey will never be able to move on, with or without Ian, if he doesn’t try to get Ian to remember that day. 

Mickey wakes up sometime in the middle of the night with visions of blood-stained sidewalks and Ian’s voice echoing in his mind over and over again. 

_‘What does that even mean?’_

_‘What does that even mean?’_

_**‘What does that even mean?’** _

Mickey thought he knew. 

Now he thinks he might not know what it means anymore.


	2. I've been having a hard time adjusting...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian comes home from the hospital.
> 
> Mickey tries to bury his demons in some dark ways.
> 
> And the truth finally comes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dives into some dark themes sexually. Mickey in his own way is trying to escape things through sex and doing so by trying to trust Ian again. 
> 
> This chapter is going to hurt. But like all things Ian and Mickey it needs to hurt before they can heal, right?
> 
> Thank you all for reading and the comments have been awesome. 
> 
> I love you all <3

  
  
  
  
**_I've been having a hard time adjusting  
I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting_**  
  
Mickey tucks the corner of the bed sheet in place. Ian is standing by the bedroom door, arm in a sling and giving Mickey this smirk that should make Mickey’s insides warm. But it doesn’t. Mickey feels like he’s living a lie. Like he’s stuck in someone else’s life and this gorgeous red head eyeing him like he’s the most important thing in the world really isn't his. Because he’s not. None of this is Mickey’s anymore. He’s an imposter in his own life and he knows, sooner than later, Ian is going to wake up and remember. He’s going to see Mickey lying next to him in this small twin bed and remember Mickey isn't what he wants. That Mickey isn’t supposed to be here. 

“Blue or green blanket?” Mickey asks, walking past him to the linen closet in the hallway. Like he lives here or something. Like this is normal. Like Ian didn’t just break up with him a month ago. 

“Does it really matter?” Ian asks, giving him this look and Mickey can't acknowledge it because he knows he’s acting weird. Ian just hasn’t asked him why yet. It's coming. He just doesn't know when. Or how he’s going to respond. 

“Guess not.” Mickey picks the blue one, because it's softer and if he’s going to be sleeping in that bed too, he wants to be as comfortable as possibly before it all blows up in his face. 

“You wanna fuck?” Mickey feels Ian against his back, his cock already as half-mast in his sweatpants pressed against Mickey’s ass. Mickey swallows thickly because, yeah, he wants to fuck. He’s wanted to fuck since the second he saw Ian alive and talking in that hospital bed. But Ian’s arm is still fucked up and it almost makes him feel sick to his stomach because Ian isn't HIS to be fucked by anymore. In a weird out of body way it feels like Mickey is the other man. Like Ian’s cheating on someone else with Mickey. It's an odd thought to have; there are so many odd thoughts going through his mind lately. Some he can't even make sense of anymore. 

Like why, with Ian sliding his cock hard against Mickey’s ass right now, in such a pure and soft way because it's Ian’s way of saying _‘I missed you. I want you. Let’s go slow’_ , all Mickey can think of is how many dirty fucked up sex things he can Ian to do. He figures he might as well get some shit off his bucket list with the person he loves more than anything in this world while he still thinks he loves Mickey. It feels like he’s tricking him. Like he’s taking advantage. Maybe he is. Maybe he should come clean right now and tell him what happened that day. The things he said. The look on his face of pure...truth. 

But Ian rolls his hips one more time and slides his good hand over his stomach and down to cup his down fully hard dick through his boxers. 

“Tell me what you want.” Ian whispers against his neck, slipping his tongue out to lick a long line from the crease of his shoulder to his ear. Fuck. Mickey had almost forgotten how Ian could be before everything went to shit. Before Mickey’s ass would get so sore from fucking that he could barely sit down. Before Ian’s hypersexuality made sex more of a punishment than anything else. But Mickey wants the punishment. He’s a liar. He doesn’t deserve the softness. He doesn’t deserve the Ian he used to have. 

“Dildo.” Mickey all but moans. “And your cock.” 

Ian’s hand stills on his cock and his mouth is just being pressed gently against his neck. “What?” 

“DP, man. Always wanted to try it.” 

“R-Right now? I thought we could...” 

Mickey turns and stares at Ian, eyes dark. “What? You don’t want to?” 

“No, I mean, yeah, I do. But I just got home from the hospital. It's been weeks since we’ve had sex. I thought maybe we could like take our time and go slow.” 

“Could you sound anymore gay, Gallagher? Come on. Stop being such a pussy.” 

Hurt glazes over Ian’s eyes and Mickey leans up to press his mouth hotly against Ian’s. “We can do slow later. We got time. Just need to be filled right now, Fire crotch.” 

It seems to ease Ian’s apprehension and confusion a little as Mickey feels Ian’s hand settle on the small of his back and pull him flush against him. Ian’s still hard, which is a good sign, and their cocks rub together through thin fabric and Ian licks into Mickey’s mouth and Mickey knows he’s won this battle. 

And that’s how it begins. 

How Mickey somehow convinces Ian, every single time they have sex, to do some of the dirtiest, kinkiest, taboo shit Mickey can think of. 

That first day it was the double penetration. Ian ate him out for almost an hour. Mickey’s arms were sore for almost 3 days after from reaching back with his chest flat on the bed, spreading his ass open so Ian could lick and spit and suck at his rim and inside his ass. It took Ian a while to figure out how to maneuver his body just the right way so his shoulder didn’t hurt, but he did it like a Rockstar. Ian moaned and growled against Mickey’s ass, licking up and down his crack and over his balls. Because Mickey was holding himself open Ian could push his fingers alongside his tongue and Mickey felt so wet and open and he came twice in that hour; Ian fucking his tongue so deep inside his ass, that he swore somehow Ian was able to hit his prostate. Mickey came so hard the second time his whole body gave out and he ended up like a star fish across the bed. 

“Still wanna get fucked?” Ian had murmured against his shoulder and even though Mickey’s body and ass were screaming that he was done, his mind was telling him yes, he did. He needed the pain. He needed the stretch. He needed to feel it for days after. Just in case. 

Ian lubed up the dildo which was just as big as Ian and shoved it slowly into Mickey’s abused hole while Mickey just laid there and took it. His ass was sensitive and every push of the dildo made his stomach tighten and his cock couldn’t even get hard again. But he could hear Ian’s little gasps for breath and tiny whimpers as he watches Mickey’s hole swallow the toy over and over again. 

“Up. Edge of the bed. Now.” Ian commanded and Mickey slid backwards, not even bothering to lift his body up until he was at the edge, and just lifted his ass in the air and kept his face smashed into the blanket underneath him. It was soft, just how liked it, and Ian kept the dildo deep in his hole as he pushed his cock slowly beside it. Mickey screamed. He wasn’t embarrassed by it. That house had heard worse coming from their room before and they had to have known this would happen on Ian’s first day back home. But fuck, it hurt. But Mickey had never felt more alive. 

He wonders if there was some internal fucked up reason, he enjoyed the pain so much. Probably stemmed from his childhood and shit but Ian is the only person he’d ever allow to do that to him. He’d never trust anyone ever again to do this to him, so he had to get it all out of his system for when Ian finally leaves again. Mickey wanted to believe that was the reason. But he knew better. He knew the real reason he wanted the pain. 

Ian fucked him hard and ruthless that day. Ian was lost in the feeling of filling and stretching Mickey to the brink. Mickey wasn’t sure what it felt like for Ian; it must have been tighter than anything he’d ever experienced before; because Ian was grunting and whispering obscenities and dirty filthy shit as he fucked Mickey until he was literally blacked out. Mickey’s body might have been there, open and ready to be used by Ian anyway he wanted it, but his mind was gone. 

“Look at that hole. Fuck, Mick. I’ve never seen you so open. God. I need to cum but I don’t want to stop. I could do this all night. You’d take it, wouldn’t you? You’d let me fuck you all night and stretch you until you can't even feel it anymore. Fuck, Mick. Fuck.” 

Mickey doesn’t remember when Ian came. He honestly didn’t even feel it because his hole was so abused and stretched that he doesn’t remember anything until he woke up to Ian touching his shoulder, holding out 3 Aleve and a beer. Mickey had blinked up at him and Ian had this look on his face that Mickey couldn’t read. Maybe he had finally remembered. But when Mickey had swallowed the pills and laid back down, Ian just curled up right behind him and told him he loved him, right next to the spot behind his ear that makes Mickey float away and melt into a puddle all one touch. 

That was the first day. 

The next time they had sex, Mickey made Ian drip hot wax from the candle that Debbie had lit in the bathroom because she had said _‘it fucking smells like ass in here’_ and Mickey’s skin was red and inflamed from the wax for 2 days after. He kept pressing at the burns, remembering. Liking the way, the pain stayed with him and could bring it back to the surface whenever he wanted to. 

Next time was pretty normal; Ian on top of him, arm resting against a pillow along Mickey’s head and fucking into him and deep and hard like they both were used to. But then Ian nipped just slightly at Mickey’s shoulder and Mickey’s eyes had flown open and he took his hand and pressed it hard against the back of Ian’s head to get his mouth deeper into his skin. 

“Bite me.” Mickey demanded. Ian did, a little harder than normal but Mickey just dug his fingers into the back of Ian’s longer red locks and pulled hard. “Harder.” 

Ian had stopped moving at this point; his cock just deep inside Mickey’s ass, hips stilled, and wrapped his entire mouth around Mickey’s shoulder. His teeth were sharp and demanding to break skin but he didn’t. Mickey just pushed harder at the back of Ian’s head until Ian finally took the hint and when Mickey finally felt his skin break and blood trickle from the wound, he came, spurting untouched between them. Mickey was fucked up. He knew it. But he couldn’t stop. 

Ian was quiet that night after that. He still cuddled up next to him when it was time to sleep and still whispered _‘I love you’_ like he did every fucking night, but there was almost a sadness in his voice. Like he’d been trying to figure Mickey out. But Mickey ignored it, and allowed himself to held by large pale limbs all night. He hadn't slept so well in a long time. 

Then there was 4 nights ago when Mickey asked Ian to wrap a belt around his neck while Mickey rode him. Ian looked nervous the whole time but Mickey went on a whole different plane of existence with that orgasm. He couldn’t breathe around the leather, and Ian had his feet planted against the bed and just kept fucking up, up, up, into him and keeping his hands white knuckling around the belt and Ian won't admit it, but as soon as Mickey came all over Ian’s stomach, untouched, and couldn’t even make a sound through his release, he felt Ian’s cock pulse harder than it ever had and when Mickey finally came to, slumped against Ian’s chest and the belt now loose around his neck, Ian was still inside him and still moaning and Mickey knew he came not once, but twice, from that. Because Ian may think all this crazy sex is weird and he may be confused as to why, but Mickey knows Ian loves the control. He’s a gold star top in every sense of the phrase and all Mickey has been doing these past few weeks is giving Ian everything he has over to him. 

But there was a breaking point and Mickey knew it was coming. Mickey had been tied up, whipped, bruised, bitten, had many, many different things shoved up his ass, face fucked with Ian’s 9 inches to the point where he almost passed out, (he did but Ian doesn’t need to know that) choked, wrestled, impaled, and fucked so many different ways, over so many different surfaces, that by the time Ian’s arm came out of that sling and the doctor said his shoulder had healed perfectly and got a clean bill of health, Mickey had literally run out of everything on his sexcapades bucket list he had made in his head. 

Except one. 

And that’s when Ian lost his ever-loving mind. 

“No fucking way. What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ian’s out of the shower before Mickey can rinse the soap off his body. 

“What?” Mickey yells, shutting the water off and wrapping a towel around his waist. He finds Ian shoving his long legs into boxers, wet beads of moisture sliding down his taut abs. Fuck, he was all ready to fuck, and still is. Mickey cups his hard on over his towel. 

“Of all the shit we’ve done, that’s your line?” Mickey huffs, pushing Ian out of the way to grab a pair of his own boxers from the drawer. Ian doesn’t answer. He grabs a cigarette off the bedside table and lights it, pacing around the small bedroom. Jesus. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“I’m not some fucking dog, Mick. I have limits.” 

“Never did before.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Ian...” 

“Oh, it's Ian now? It's been Gallagher and Fire crotch and all the other fucking names you call me, but now when I’m fucking pissed it's Ian?” He won't even look at Mickey. 

“What exactly are you mad about? If you didn’t want to do it, it's fine. But you don’t get to be mad.” Mickey lights his own cigarette and stares at Ian as he watches him have some sort of internal struggle. 

“Where are you Mickey?” Ian whispers. 

“Huh?” 

“Ever since I got shot you’ve been like...not here. Like physically yeah, but the sex has been weird and you’ve been like distant and angry. All the time. And I mean, you usually are always angry, but this is like next level shit. Is this about the ‘I love you’ thing? Because I’ve told you like 100 times that I do but-” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Mickey thumbs his bottom lip. He turns away, staring at some random drawings on Ian’s wall. Some of them are Liam’s from when he was a kid. Some of them are some random things Mickey had done. Things Mickey had tossed in the garbage or on the floor that Ian had taken back and taped up. It was such a simple gesture. And at the time meant so much to Mickey but he never said it. Now he felt like the drawings were taunting him. 

“Tell me what’s going on, please? I like the sex, I do. We’ve done some pretty awesome stuff. But...all the time? And that...that choking thing freaked me out, Mick.” 

“You’ve choked me before.” 

“Yeah, with my hand. And it was for a like a few seconds. You made me wrap that belt around you so tight. I...” 

“You came twice from that Gallagher.” 

Ian sighs behind him. “I’m worried about you, Mick. Something is going on. And I don’t know if it's because of the shooting or...” 

“If I say it is, will you shut the fuck up about it?” 

There's a few seconds of silence. “Do you want me to hurt you? Is that what this is about?” 

Mickey sighs, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Sometimes. Sometimes I like pain, okay? I get it's fucked up-” 

“Mick, no.” Mickey feels Ian’s soft hands on his shoulders and he tenses. Fuck. “I like it too. It’s a part of who we are in bed. But...this is different. It's like...it's like you wanted to stop breathing that night.” 

“You almost died, Ian. Maybe I wanted to almost die too.” 

Ian presses his face into Mickey’s shoulder and he can feel the wetness and then soft sob out of Ian’s throat behind him. He’s lying. He’s still lying. It's not just that. It's so much deeper than that. 

“You don’t remember.” Mickey mumbles. 

“What?” Ian presses a wet kiss on his neck. 

“You don’t remember. And part of me doesn’t want you to but I don’t belong here and...” 

“Mickey.” Ian turns him in his arms and stares down at him. “I know it must have been hard to see it happen. I get that. But I’m here. I’m okay. I’m safe.” 

Mickey pulls away from Ian’s embrace. He still doesn't get it. He’ll never get it. 

“Mick...what the fuck is going on?” Ian’s voice is stern now and Mickey can see the flash of anger in his green eyes. It's now or never. Mickey pushes Ian back, with one hand on his chest and brings his bottom lip between his teeth. 

“Right before you got shot, right before Sammi came after me with that gun, you broke up with me.” 

Ian’s eyes cloud over with confusion. Then he laughs. “No, I didn’t.” 

“Yeah, you really did. You said how you didn't want to take your meds. Asked me if I still wanted to be with you if you didn’t. Spewed shit at me about how I didn’t owe you anything and there was nothing wrong with you and how I didn’t even know who you were anymore. I told you I fucking loved you and you asked me what that even meant. I...” Mickey’s voice is trembling and so are his hands. There are tears threatening to escape his eyes and he looks away from Ian’s blank stare out the window. He can hear kids playing in the street and sirens in the distance and Mickey can hear his heart beat fast and unsteady echoing in his head. “I asked you if you were breakin' up with me. You said yeah.” 

Ian blinks and takes a full step back from Mickey. “I... I wouldn’t have done that. I love you. There’s no way.” 

“You weren't on your meds. You didn’t want to be. You had just come back from bein’ with Monica. You were so fucked up, Ian. I was lookin’ at you and there was like nothing in your eyes, man. Nothin’ starin’ back at me. It was like looking at a ghost.” 

“Then you know, Mick! You know I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t in my right mind. And I am gonna take the pills. I am takin the pills!” Ian reaches for him, but Mickey pulls back. 

“Until when? Until your dick won't get hard again and you think I’m gonna leave and then you leave me again? Huh? How many times are we gonna do this?” 

“So, what now you don’t want to be with me?” Ian yells, hands fisted at his sides. Mickey shakes his head. 

“Ian, I would die right fucking now for you if you asked me to. But you don’t want to be with me. Not really. Your brain is back online now and you’re running off this adrenaline of being alive and shit but that guy standing on this porch telling me there was nothing wrong with him? That was you, man. That was all you.” 

“You don’t want me to take the pills?” 

“I didn’t fucking say that!” 

“Then what the fuck are you saying, Mickey? Because you’re the one making me feel crazy right now!” Ian is back in his face, spit flying everywhere. 

“Maybe that’s the problem! Maybe I’m the problem! You didn’t get all fucking manic and depressed and shit until me, right? Until our relationship got all fucked up cause of my dad and the baby and shit. It’s my fault you got that way! It's my fault! Don’t you get it!? All of this is my fault! You almost died, Ian. You could have fucking died. You were bleeding out in my arms and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” 

“But I didn’t! And none of this is your fault. It's just the luck of the draw. I got Monica’s shitty genes. You didn't do anything wrong. I did. I remember everything, Mick. I remember all you did. I remember all you did for me. And I know you love me, and I do know what it means. And I love you. Why isn't that enough? Enough to start over. To move on from.” 

“Because you meant it, Ian. You meant every fucking word you said. And maybe you don’t right now. Maybe if you hadn't gotten shot maybe you would have realized you needed the pills and realized you had made a mistake with me, but we won't ever know. Because you don’t remember how you felt in that moment. But I do. I could feel it off you. You wanted nothin’ to do with me anymore.” 

“Then why did I step in front of that gun, huh? WHY?” Ian screams, tears streaming down his face. 

Mickey shrugs. “I don’t know. Why did you, Ian?” 

And then it's like a light gets clicked on inside Ian’s head and Mickey watches as the anger slowly dissipates and the fear washes over. Ian knows why. So does Mickey. So does every single person in this house hearing this screaming match taking place that was long overdue. 

“You think I wanted to die?” Ian blinks. 

“Did you?” 

Ian jaw trembles. “Get out.” He whispers. 

“What?” 

“GET OUT!” Ian screams at the top of his lungs. “GET OUT. GET OUT. GET THE FUCK OUT!” 

Mickey doesn’t hesitate, he grabs a pair of jeans and shirt somewhere on the floor and his boots and barrels out the door and down the stairs. Lip is standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching him as he takes two of them at a time down. Mickey shoves his legs into his jeans and pulls his boots on without tying them and barely gets his shirt on before he’s grabbing his coat off the hook by the front door. 

“What the fuck happened?” Lip asks. 

“Exactly what I told you would. It’s over.” 

Mickey slams the door before Lip can respond.


	3. I just wanted you to know...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey tries to stay away from Ian, but fails. 
> 
> Dates are had, brother's interject, and secrets are found out. 
> 
> And decisions are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU for all the kind words. This chapter will hurt less than the last, I promise. Things are going to be hard still, but things are looking up for our boys.
> 
> As always comments are LOVE.

  


  


Mickey is shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth when he feels the hand upside his head. He growls low in his chest and squeezes his eyes shut and counts to 3 before he reacts.

“The fuck is wrong with you!”

“You mope around for weeks now. We need money. Get money.” Svetlana puts Yevgeny in his high chair and sits heavily at the table, lighting a cigarette. Her robe is open and he can see her tits hanging out for the world to see and he winces visibly. “Put that shit away. I don’t want to see that.”

She chuckles and continues to smoke and sip her coffee every once in a while, and putting more eggs on the kids' tray. “Orange boy dump you?”

Mickey ignores her and keeps eating his eggs.

“Better off. I do not want him around baby.”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?” Mickey asks as a loud banging starts on the front door. “Christ.” He pushes his chair loudly across the floor while he stands. “Fuck off. I’m coming.”

He pulls the door open and rolls his eyes immediately. “The fuck do you want?”

“Good to see you too, Mickey.” Lip looks around him into the house. “Good to see the house is back to its normal pile of shit since Ian’s gone.”

“You come here so I can kick your fucking ass, or is there another reason for you to be interrupting my breakfast?”

Lip smirks, sucks on the end of his cigarette and hands Mickey a folded-up piece of paper. “From Ian.”

“I don’t want that shit.”

Lip sighs heavily. “He paid me $20 bucks for me to come give this to you. Didn’t want to leave in the mailbox. Wanted it hand delivered.” Lip is still smirking and Mickey has never wanted to break someone's nose more in his life.

“Are you fucking kidding?”

“Wish I was.”

There’s a silent standoff between the two men and Mickey finally snatches it out of Lip’s hand and glances it at it, folding it back and forth in his hand. “He okay?”

“Yeah, actually. We all thought he’d fly off the handle again when you left, but oddly he didn’t. Taking his meds. Working at the diner. He hates it, but its money.”

“Yeah, well, I knew there was nothing left there.”

Lip laughs this time and throws his cigarette onto the front porch. “Nah, he still goes on and on about you. Fucking annoying.”

“He can yammer away all he wants about me, don’t change anything.”

Lip rubs his hand over his face. “I cannot believe I’m doing this, but-” He eyes Mickey. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Fucking excuse me?”

“He loves you. I don’t know why. I really fucking don’t. But he does. He doesn’t want to break up.”

“He told me to get the fuck out of his house.”

Lip huffs and Mickey can see his breath in the cold morning air. “You accused him of trying to commit suicide.”

“Didn't he?”

Lip shrugs. “Jury’s still out.”

“Well, he needs to figure his fucking shit out.”

“So, you don’t want to be with him?”

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey grips the letter in his hand tightly. “You here to talk about feelings?”

“I’d rather not, but I have a feeling you didn’t want to leave.”

“You think I wanna be here, with this?” He waves behind to himself to Svetlana still half naked sitting at the table now eating his eggs. “Make your own breakfast, bitch!” She gives him the finger as he continues to eat. He turns back to Lip. “Listen, maybe this is for the best. Ian needs to figure his shit out and I can't fucking trust him after what happened. It's not his fault, and yeah maybe he didn’t mean it a hundred percent because his head was fucked up, but there was something in him at that time that made him do it.”

“Ever think he was just trying to give you an easy way out?”

“If that’s true then he never knew me at all. I never take the easy way out. Especially when it comes to him.” Mickey waves the letter in the air. “Let him know I got it and make him pay up.” He closes the door in Lip’s face and presses his forehead against it.

“He is much cuter than carrot boy. Maybe he will let you rubs dicks together.”

Mickey just groans loudly and bangs his head against the worn wood of the door.

  


*~*~*~*

  


Mickey’s finishing up with a few ‘customers’ stuffing the wad of bills into his back pocket when he sees a fluff of red hair from across the street. It's been almost a month since he’s seen him and all Mickey wants to do run across the street to him. But he can't. Ian’s isn't his anymore. He watches as Ian stands in front of the firehouse, looking inside and clutching the straps of his backpack with white knuckles. Mickey should leave, but he doesn’t, he just stands there watching. He isn't sure how much time passes, but just being able to look at Ian again, even from far away, was settling some sort of peace back into his body he didn’t know was missing.

He’s just about to go onto the next block of ‘customers’, filling his quota of Ian for the next month, when a tall dark drink of water comes out of the firehouse and is smiling at Ian. And Mickey knows that smile Ian is giving back. That’s Ian’s flirting smile. And then firefighter Shemar Moore is touching Ian’s shoulder and Ian’s face is flushing and Mickey takes a step off the sidewalk before he can even think twice.

“AY!”

Both Ian and young Denzel look towards the voice and they both looked confused until Ian realizes it’s him, and his eyes widen.

“Mickey.” Ian breathes out.

“Gallagher. Funny running into you here. Thinking of fighting fires in your down time?”

Ian swallows and looks at Denzel again and back at Mickey. “Um...”

“Ian here is just thinking about becoming an EMT. Was asking me some questions. I’m Caleb.” This asshole puts his large hand out attached to his muscular arm and Mickey is seething.

“Yeah, great.” Mickey turns back to Ian, ignoring the gesture from that dick. “Read your letter.”

Ian blinks. “Yeah?”

And just like that, Caleb doesn’t even exist. It's not like Mickey honestly has anything to really SAY to Ian. All the letter really said was that he was sorry and he didn’t remember breaking up with Mickey and he didn’t try to kill himself and he missed him, etc, etc, etc.

“Yeah.”

It’s a staring contest now, both Ian and Mickey just drinking in the site of each other.

“So, Ian, I can give you my number if you ever want to-”

“Yo, Shaft, read the room.” Mickey snaps at him, motioning at him to fuck off. Caleb walks away, finally, looking back at Ian with a confused look.

“You into dark chocolate now?” Mickey asks, rubbing his bottom lip.

“You got some kind of radar that whenever I’m in the vicinity of another guy it goes off?” Ian smirks.

“Fuck off. Was across the street.”

“How long?”

“Huh?”

“How long were you watching me?”

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Yeah, Mick. I’m okay.”

“Kay.” Mickey looks around, up and down the sidewalk. “I should get going. My bitch of a wife needs money again and I got a few more blocks to hit up.”

“Back to your old ways, huh?”

“Gotta earn a livin’.”

“Mmm. Right.”

Mickey gives him once last small smile and heads up the sidewalk.

“I miss you!” Ian yells. “A lot.”

Mickey stills, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Don’t be a dick. This isn't his fault. Its Mickey’s. He did this. He chose to walk away.

“Yeah, me too, Gallagher.” Mickey knows he should end it at that, but decides to turn and raises his eyebrow at him. “Don’t go out with that guy. He seems like a fucking douche.”

Ian laughs, his smile brightening the gray winter sky. “Okay, Mick.”

  


~*~*~*~*

  


It’s not that Mickey isn't in pain. He is. The absence of Ian in his life is so large that it feels like he’s half of who he used to be. But he keeps living. He does what he needs to do to make sure he keeps the house running with Terry’s new stint in the joint; he makes sure his brothers down burn the house down when they come and go out of there, as they please. Svetlana trapes new bitches through the house like it's some kind of whorehouse, and maybe it is, and every week she has a new muff diver sitting at their kitchen table eating his eggs and playing with his son like she’s auditioning new step mothers.

But he survives. He misses Ian so like some kind of sawed-off limb. He jerks off like it's his last night on earth and he thinks about getting his dicked sucked a couple of times when he’s walking home at night through the park or when his business takes him to Boys town at 1AM. But he doesn’t. In a way he thinks it's still like cheating on Ian, and he feels sick to his stomach to know that he did with that fucking cupcake in the park while Ian was off fuck knows where with Monica. Maybe Ian deserved it. Maybe he didn’t. But whatever kind of revenge Mickey thought Ian deserved at the time, he thinks maybe manifested some kind of fucked up karma into the universe because then Ian got shot and well...

Mickey hasn’t seen Ian since that day outside the firehouse and for all he knows Ian could be living with that fucking firefighter by now. And that’s what makes Mickey lose his damn mind every night when he’s lying in bed alone, arm curled around the pillow Ian used to covet and it's still there; his scent; lingering like the memories that still exist in Mickey’s bedroom. His life has become exactly what his father had wanted; Ian gone and him supporting a wife and kid he never wanted. And he thinks that’s what makes the anger and the resentment bubble up and course through his body every night and all Mickey wants to do is run to him.

It's how he ends up standing outside on that same sidewalk almost 3 months later. The new thin layer of snow is covering the blood stains on the concrete and Mickey just stands there staring at the spot on the bottom stair where Ian sat. Lost. Broken. Defeated. And Mickey remembers that feeling of just wanting to save him. Wrap his arms around him and love him. But Ian wouldn’t let him. And Mickey deserved it. Because for years all Ian wanted was for Mickey to return an ounce of what Ian felt for him. But Mickey couldn’t. He felt it; of course he fucking felt it. He felt it the second Ian put his hands on Mickey’s hips. Maybe even before that. But he just couldn’t. And finally, _finally_ , when Ian made Mickey strong enough to believe that his life could be better, that he could have love without bruises and pain, Ian took it away leaving Mickey to believe all over again, that he wasn’t meant for anything else.

“Mick?”

Mickey didn’t even realize the front door had opened and Ian is standing there in sweatpants and one of Mickey’s old worn t-shirts that he must have left here and his arms are wrapped around his body to shield himself from the bitter winter air and he looks good. Healthy. The front porch light is shining and reflecting off his bedhead and his eyes are shiny and sleep ridden and Mickey isn't even sure how Ian knew he was even standing outside.

“Who has the GPS now?” Mickey teases. Ian smirks and steps out of the house and onto the porch.

“You wanna come inside? It's cold.”

“Nah. Just...clearing my head. It's too much in that house sometimes.”

“So, you come here where it's even more crowded?”

“You’re here.”

Ian’s expression changes, and Mickey can't place the emotion and he smiles so gently Mickey’s chest aches.

“I’ve always been here, Mick.”

Mickey doesn’t answer, he just shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets and squints up the street. “I should go.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Yeah, I remember standing right here a while ago and you having a totally different opinion.”

Ian steps down the stairs and Mickey suddenly feels hot in the 25-degree weather. “How many times do I need to tell you that I didn’t mean that?” He’s right in Mickey’s face now, arms still curled around his arms. No shoes or socks. Breath heavy in the air. “I haven't been with anyone else, Mick.”

“You’re getting your shit straight, probably best you don’t.”

Ian laughs. “It's not that. It's you. I only want you. And I’ll wait until you trust me again. Because I’m not giving up.”

“Guess some things never change.” Mickey grabs his pack of cigarettes in his pocket and lights one as Ian just continues to stare at him, wheels turning in his head like he’s trying to figure out the exact right thing to say.

“Mickey.” He says his name so softly and it reminds Mickey of the night when he came out in that bar and they stumbled home bloody and broken and they showered together; hands so soft on cuts and bruises; and then laid together under the heavy blanket and Ian traced his fingertips along Mickey’s face and kept whispering obnoxious sweet things to him. It's that same voice now.

“I can't, Ian.”

“Then why are you here, Mick?”

Mickey inhales sharply on his cigarette. “You’re under my skin, man. The fuck can I do? Huh? What can I do?”

Ian breaks the distance and presses his cold mouth to Mickey’s. It's simple at first; just closed lips against his. But Mickey can't help but part them and Ian’s tongue slides in against Mickey’s and the cigarette is dropped and Mickey presses his nicotine stained fingers against Ian’s neck and cold arms wrap around Mickey’s waist and it might be, hands down, the best kiss he’s ever had with Ian. There’s so much being said in this kiss. Things that words always fuck up. Things that sometimes can't be said or understood with words.

“Come inside.” Ian moans between licks into Mickey’s mouth. And fuck Mickey wants to. He wants to inside and climb into bed with Ian and never leave. The problem is Mickey never felt like he had a home unless he was with Ian. But Mickey doesn’t want to do this. Not this way. If there still something here, other than the intense need to have Ian fuck him until he can't even remember why he left in the first place, they need to find it again. Because Ian was still healing, at least mentally, and Mickey can't do this all over again unless Ian is stable and has a clear head of what he really wants.

Mickey finally pulls back, against everything in his body telling him not to, and pats Ian’s cheek twice. “I’ll see you around, Gallagher.”

He can feel Ian’s eyes on him as he makes his way back home in the middle of the quiet Southside streets.

  


*~*~*~*~*~*~

  


Mickey can't help but smirk when he finds Lip at his doorstep the next morning.

“This shit is getting real fucking annoying.” Lip shoves a letter into Mickey’s chest, a little harder than needed.

“Don’t understand why he doesn’t just bring them himself.” Mickey eyes the folded-up piece of paper, smirk still etched on his face.

“Yeah, he’s trying to respect your space or some shit.” Lip rolls his eyes and then gives Mickey a nod. “We good?”

“Yeah, but tell him next time he can used the god damn postal service. It's cheaper.” He closes the door in Lip’s face. It seems to a thing between them now. Mickey just isn't quite sure what that thing is.

Mickey unfolds the letter and all it says is:

****Friday. 8. Be ready.** **

****Still never went on that date.** **

****Ian** **

“Why do you smile? You find someone to stick dick up your hole?”

Mickey doesn’t even have it in him to insult her or tell her to fuck off.

He’s smiling.

  


*~*~*~*~

  


Mickey’s sitting on his porch when Ian arrives 2 minutes to 8. He’s dressed in nice jeans, a soft looking blue t-shirt and his winter coat over it, unzipped. His hair is still longer, but its styled back and fuck he looks good.

Mickey stands and Ian stays at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him.

“Didn't know if you’d go for it.”

Mickey rubs his bottom lip, roughly. “What, no flowers?”

Ian digs into the pocket of his jacket and holds up an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds. Mickey can't help but laugh.

“Romantic, Gallagher.”

“Thought you’d like it.”

There’s a few beats of silence and Mickey finally steps down off the porch. He snatches the pack from Ian’s hand and rolls his around in his fingers a bit. “So, where we going?”

“Sizzlers?” Ian waggles his eyebrows and Mickey raises his own at him.

“First date, huh?”

“Nah, we’ve been on plenty of dates. This is just...”

“Startin’ over?”

“If that’s what you want, then, yeah.”

Mickey licks his bottom lip and bends his head back to look up at the winter sky. “And what do you want, Gallagher?”

“Just you. Anyway, I can. Whenever you’re ready. If this is too much-”

Mickey shakes his head and looks right in Ian’s eyes. “Wouldn't be here if it was.”

“Good.” Ian smiles. “I know I got shit to prove to you. But I’m here. I’m chasing after your ass this time.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Ian steps forward reaching out gently with two fingers to link them in Mickey’s. “I owe you everything.” He whispers.

Mickey’s eyes slide shut and he has to remember to breathe. He can't be sucked in like this. Ian smells so good; that natural man scent he gives off mixed with his damn mango shampoo and Irish Spring soap that shouldn’t mix well together but somehow does. Slow. This needs to go slow. If this is going to work at all; it's like they need to get to know each other all over again. He knows it's not that Ian doesn’t remember anything. He remembers them. He remembers what they were. What they went through together. He remembers being sick. He remembers taking the baby. He remembers all the shit that brought them to this spot. It’s part of the reason Ian ended things on that porch. But Ian was better now. And Mickey needs to make sure that the reason Ian wants to be with him isn't because he’s holding onto a memory, a feeling of what he had now that his mind is clear. Because they are both right about one thing. Neither of them owes each other anything.

Mickey needs to make sure Ian is sure this is what he wants. Because if they start this again, for real, Mickey won't be able to let go next time. He will chase and claw for Ian till the ends of the earth. He won't ever give up. He won't ever be able to come back from it again. So, he needs to be sure. And so, does Ian.

“Let’s get me a steak, okay?”

Ian nods. “Okay, Mick.”

*~*~*~*~*

Mickey lets out a loud belch and takew a long drag of his cigarette. He stumbles a little on the icy streets and Ian laughs, pulling him steady by his elbow.

“Easy there, tiger.”

“M-fine.” Mickey keeps smoking and sloshing his boots through the street.

“Enjoy your dinner?” Ian asks.

“Steak and beer? Better than sex.” Mickey yells into the night sky, arms thrown out at his sides.

“Right.” Mickey glances at him and Ian is just staring straight ahead as they walk.

“Oh, come on, Fire Crotch. You know your cock is great.” Mickey hip checks him and Ian stumbles a bit in the snow.

Mickey knows he’s a bit drunk. But they didn’t card him at Sizzlers and he may have felt bad that he had 5 beers to Ian’s one because Ian can't drink that much on his meds, but it was a date, right? And he had never been to Sizzlers and yeah, maybe he drank so much because he was fucking nervous and they had sat there in fucking silence for 10 minutes. But Ian is annoyed.

Mickey has already fucked this up.

“Sorry.” Mickey mumbles.

“It's okay.”

“No,” Mickey grabs Ian’s arm. “It’s not. I’m being an asshole.”

“You’re just drunk. I’m used to you drunk.”

Mickey sighs. “Well, you shouldn’t be. That’s a fucked-up thing to be used to. Trust me, I know. Terry was drunk 90% of my life. He’s probably drunk right now, even in prison.”

“It’s fine. Really. I guess I’m just nervous. Which is crazy because it's you, you know. And I wanted to go out with you. Like in public. I wanted to do this right, and I can't believe I’m saying this, but it didn't feel right. Sitting in that restaurant. It's not who we are.” Ian shrugs. “It was stupid.”

“Thought you liked all that wine and dine shit. All your gray pubed geezers used to take you out all the time.”

Ian frowns. “Because they were trying to get something out of me. I wanted to this with you because I thought it was what normal couples did.”

“We ain’t never been no normal couple, Ian.” Mickey stomps his foot into a large pile of snow on the side of the road.

“No, I guess we’re not.” Ian pauses. “Are we even a couple?”

The street light above their heads is causing an electric buzzing sound to echo in Mickey’s ears and the alcohol is coursing in his bloodstream and he doesn’t want to hurt Ian. He’s never wanted to hurt Ian. But it's what he does, isn't it? Maybe it’s the real reason Ian wanted to break up with him. Maybe it's not. But it’s the truth. All he does is hurt Ian.

“No. We’re not.”

Ian’s face crumbles in the flickering light from the street lamp. But he straightens his shoulders and sticks out his jaw. “Then I’ll just have to keep trying.”

Mickey watches as Ian continues his journey home and wraps his hand around the pack of cigarettes Ian brought him. “For how long?” He yells after him.

Ian turns, walking backwards. Mickey can't tell if he’s smiling or not. “As long as it takes!” His voice echoes through the empty street.

Ian can't see it, but Mickey is smiling.

  


*~*~*~*~

  


Mickey can not believe this keeps happening. If it wasn’t such a damn Ian thing to do, he’d be annoyed. And he was. To an extent. But this _is_ such an Ian thing to do and he wants to be mad. And Lip should definitely be mad. And he does look mad. And Mickey’s trying to look mad as well. But it's not working.

“This shit needs to stop. You need to come with me.”

Mickey arches an eyebrow at him. “Come the fuck where?”

“To the house.”

Mickey doesn’t move from inside the doorway and Lip sighs heavily. “Ian’s at work. I just need to show you something. For real. Cause I refuse to keep doing this shit.” Lip hops down off the front steps and Mickey grabs his jacket, muttering obscenities about a certain ginger beanpole the whole 5-minute walk to the Gallagher house.

“Still don’t understand why he won't just come to the fucking house. He came to my house the other night before we went to fucking Sizzlers.”

“Oh, yeah. Heard _all_ about that shit too. Mandy needs to come the fuck back because I can't be the one Ian goes to about all his Mickey woes. I can't fucking do it anymore. It’s gonna make me drink.”

“Don’t need Ian babbling about me to make you drink there, tough guy.”

Lip throws him a look over his shoulder as he pushes the front door to the Gallagher house open. “No one else is here so don’t worry about having any awkward conversations or anything.”

“You mean like this one?” Mickey follows Lip up the stairs and stops at the top when Lip starts moving toward Ian’s room. Lip looks back at him.

“Jesus fucking Christ. The two of you are so God Damn dramatic. I honestly cannot take this shit anymore.” Lip all but grabs Mickey by the material on his coat but Mickey pushes him off.

“Don't fucking touch me.” Mickey pushes his chest against Lip’s. “You think this is like breaking up with one of the whores you have coming in and out? Or like what you did to Mandy? Which I still owe you an ass beating for, by the way. This isn't like that. What Ian and I have...had...you don’t fucking understand. You’ll never fucking understand.”

Mickey can tell Lip is trying to keep his cool. He keeps taking these deep breathes as he keeps his eyes dead on Mickey’s.

“I fucking know, okay?” Lip gently pushes Mickey back. “I wouldn’t be fucking doing this if I didn’t know. But one of you has to fucking do something. You either need to forgive him or he needs to move the fuck on. Because this shit...” Lip motions towards Ian’s room again and Mickey finally, finally, walks toward it, pushing the door open wider. It looks like it always does. Bed not made; clothes strewn everywhere. Orange pill bottles on the side table. But then Mickey sees what Lip brought him here for. What all the drama is about.

There’s a dry erase board propped up on the desk by the window. In red marker are the words:

**_ **How to win Mickey back** _ **

Mickey’s eyes widen and then he fucking laughs. He laughs so hard in fact; tears start to form in the corners of his eyes.

“I’m so fucking glad you find this so hilarious. Cause guess what? I don’t. He was up yammering away till 1AM asking me, _ME_ , MICKEY, what he could to do to win you back. Do you know the cigarettes, instead of the flowers, was _my_ idea? I was fucking _kidding_ and he did it!”

“It worked.” Mickey says gently, walking slowly toward the board. There are tons of notes jotted in the margins. Even little doodles of cigarettes and eyes colored in blue with expressive eyebrows. Mickey can't help but smile.

“He’s not manic, is he?”

“I don’t think so. This isn't...the bi-polar. He’s just...he just wants you back.”

Mickey reads ideas written and then crossed out. Things like “date” which is crossed out so many times you can barely make out the word anymore. ‘Letter’ which is circled but then there is a question mark. One “idea” catches his eye and he looks back at Lip. “Who the fuck is Lloyd Dobler?”

“Say Anything? Boom box outside the window? I told him you’d smash his face in with the boom box if he did that.”

“You ain’t wrong.”

Mickey just stares at the board for a while, sitting on the edge of the bed, eye washing over tons of ideas which range from full on stalking to mild conversation ideas.

“Don’t you think, if he really meant to break up, he’d have a fucking _inspiration_ board in your honor? He means it, man. So, can you _please_ for the love of _God_ do something so I can have my life back?” Lip motions toward the board and Mickey can’t stop smiling. He’d always known Ian to be dramatic, but this...

It makes Mickey’s chest ache in the kind of way he missed. The ache that he had whenever he and Ian shared a moment together. Or a kiss that took his breath away. A look across a room. Mickey had missed that feeling. He misses Ian.

“Where is he?” Mickey asks gently.

“At the diner.”

Mickey nods, standing and giving Lip a small eyebrow raise. “Never pegged you as Team Ian and Mickey.”

“I’m not. I’m team Lip. And Lip thinks this is ridiculous and needs to end. Now.”

Mickey chuckles and brushes past Lip and out of the room. Mickey doesn’t know what he’s been waiting for. He doesn’t know if he was just waiting for his brain to catch back up with his heart after everything that had happened over the past 3 months. He doesn't know if in his own sick sadistic way, he was just punishing Ian for something he didn’t even remember doing. Maybe he thought he was actually doing something healthy for once. Mickey giving him and Ian some space so that Mickey could get his head in check while Ian did the same.

Mickey could spend years probably dissecting reasons as to why he couldn’t just believe Ian when he said he wanted to be with him. But he doesn’t have time for that. Ian had always been the more romantic one between the two. Mickey never understood the need for it. You cared about someone, you showed it. Flowers died, presents are just materialistic bullshit. The only things that really mattered was someone’s time and energy. And Mickey knows he’s given Ian plenty of that.

But Ian’s _board_ _o’_ _Mickey_ has him reconsidering everything he thought Ian wanted or needed. He’d made Ian suffer enough. Mickey has suffered enough. And yeah, it could probably all blow up in his face again but at least he’d have Ian for as long as he could. He’d take the pain all over again just to wake up next to that mop of red hair on the pillow next to him for one more day. He misses Ian’s hand in his when they would lie together in bed, talking about honestly nothing of any importance. But Ian’s hands were always so soft against his rough palms and it made Mickey feel loved.

And Ian loves him. Or at least Ian thinks he does. And you know what? Mickey will take it. If Ian could deal with his bitch of a wife and the baby and the inevitable return of Terry at any minute all that time, who was Mickey to tell him he shouldn’t? Good times, bad, right?

But Mickey needs a plan. He needs to take care of a few things personally before he offer Ian everything he can possibly give him and then give Ian the choice one last time.

Svetlana is sitting on the couch with whore number 4 in the past month and she eyes him suspiciously when he enters the house.

“Baby needs change.”

Mickey clenches his fists and breathes out slowly.

"I want a divorce.”

  



	4. Could've followed my fears all the way down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is put into motion.
> 
> Wrongs are corrected.
> 
> Things are forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it guys, its winding down. Just one more chapter till the end. Thank you for everyone for reading. I just had to change what happened in season 5. It bothered me too much. 
> 
> I LOVE YOU ALL. 
> 
> Comments are LOVE.

**And it's hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound**

**It's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you**

**You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town**

There had been a lot of yelling.

In Russian.

For a week straight. 

Svetlana  didn’t take his admission well, and it took over a week for her to stop screaming at him every time they were in the same room together. But he had told her she could stay at the house  as long as she wanted, but he was leaving. She could bring whatever muff divers she wanted into the house and when Terry got out of  prison, she could deal with him. He promised to still help support  Yev , and  wouldn’t leave either of them high and dry, none of this was their faults, or his for that matter. But he  couldn’t stay in that house one more second being married to her. 

He  didn’t know what was going to happen with him and Ian. Whether it would work out  in the long run , but the first step Mickey knew in making sure they even had a chance, was getting his life into some sort of normalcy.  So, first thing he did was find himself an actual job. Well, sort of. He decided to  tweak the moving van business a bit and decided he would put the word out that he would pick up people’s belongings from their storage units and bring it to their new houses. Except they would never make it there. He would sell the shit to the highest bidders, like he did before.  He’d also use the moving company as ways to get into the storage units; they  didn’t need to know he was breaking the locks off instead of using keys supplied by the owners; and sell the shit that way too. 

Mickey found a shit hole studio rather quickly and used the money he found under the floor boards in Terry’s bedroom that Terry didn’t know he knew about. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for first month's rent and a month of taking care of the soon to be ex-wife and the baby before she would come after him again for more. He only took what was in his bedroom when he moved out; nabbing a couch from one of the storage units he ripped off for himself. Along with a coffee table and a TV. 

Fuck even Lip helped him get free  Wi-Fi from the fucker downstairs and rig a cable box. 

Seemed like that asshole really did come in handy. 

“Can’t believe you have your own place. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone or some shit.” Lip wraps the extra wires around his arm as he looks around the studio. It’s a shit hole. Mickey knows it. Chipped paint on the walls. The fridge makes some weird buzzing noise and the heat has a weird oil smell that fills the small place which makes Mickey have to open the window to breathe. There’s only a bed, couch, and TV in the whole place; boxes of Mickey’s shit thrown everywhere else. The kitchen was really small. He didn’t even have an oven. But it was his. Fair and square. He earned it; maybe not totally legally, but still. He did it the Milkovich way. 

He felt bad leaving his kid behind, but all in all Svet was a decent mother. He didn’t need to worry about her neglecting him, even with her whorish ways. Everyone needed to eat, and you do what you need to do in the Southside. 

“You know I could have probably found you a job that didn’t mean possibly getting arrested for burglary.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a nice gesture and all but I think I’m done being indebted to the Gallagher’s for a while.” Mickey pauses, lighting a cigarette. “You tell him?”

“Are you fucking kidding? He’d freak if he found out I was getting to see you more than him.” Lip tries to grab the cigarette from Mickey’s hand but he waves him off but eventually huffs and hands it over. What the fuck is up with the Gallagher’s and thinking sharing saliva is okay? “When are you gonna tell him?”

Mickey shrugs. “When I’m sure this  ain’t gonna all blow up in my face.”

“You  gonna ask him to move in so you two can fight off the cockroaches together?”

Mickey smirks. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Soft bitch.” Lip mumbles. He hands the cigarette back to Mickey and makes his way to the door. “Call me if you need anything else.”

“Care to deliver a message for old  times' sake?”

Lip rolls his eyes but waits for Mickey to continue. 

“Tell him to meet me at the baseball field on Friday night?”

“That code for something?”

“Nah, just our spot, man.”

“Soft fucking bitches.” Lip closes the door behind him and Mickey  takes a look around his new place. It needs a lot of work. But  it's quiet. And  maybe one day, sometime soon,  it’ll feel like home. 

*~*~*~*~*

Mickey’s on his third cigarette when he hears the crunch of shoes in the snow in the distance. It's weird to know, just by the sound of his feet,  that’s its Ian.  It's weird for him to know anyone that well; even better than he knew himself at times. Ian’s wrapped up in a big winter coat and scarf and a warm looking beanie on his head and Mickey realizes he never unpacked his when he moved. Ian’s cheeks and nose are bright red like his hair and lips chapped from the air. 

“We couldn’t have done this inside somewhere? Its fucking 10 degrees, Mick.”

“Stop being so dramatic. We used to fuck when it was colder than this.”

“Unless you promise me your ass, this  isn't worth it.”

Mickey smiles at him; that flirty daring smile he knows Ian always falls for and when Ian’s eyes soften it feels like coming home. 

“We walking down memory lane tonight?” Ian shoves his hands deeper into his coat pocket and keeps bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet to try and stay warm. 

“Just wanted to talk.”

“Again, something we could have done inside. My house. Your house. Anywhere.”

“Yeah, see that’s the thing.  Ain’t my house anymore.”

Ian stills with his bobbing and looks right in Mickey’s eyes. “What?”

“Got myself a place. It’s a total shit hole. Can barely move around but it's got a fridge for beer and a bed for sleepin’ and a TV to play Call of Duty on. My brothers are pissed I took the PlayStation but they can suck my dick.”

Ian’s eyes are wide. “What about Svetlana? And Yev?”

“Still back at the house. I’m still taking care of them. Just needed to get out of there.” Mickey pauses. “Getting divorced too.”

Ian practically sputters and his hands come out of his pockets and go into his long locks on top of his head. He turns, a few times, like he’s waiting for the sky to fall or something. He finally stops his dramatics and turns to look at Mickey again. 

“Why?”

“Why? Cause, never wanted to be married to her to begin with. Was all my fucking Dad and guess I just got tired of being told what to do with my life. Started the moving truck thing up again, tweaking it a bit. But I’m making money.”

“You can never do anything easy, can you?”

“Nah.”

Ian steps towards him and Mickey feels his body catch fire. “Is this what you brought me here to tell me?”

Mickey shrugs. “Guess I just wanted you to know.”

“Why?” Ian asks again. And Mickey knows what he’s really asking.  _ Why here? Why now? Why does it matter? _

“You told me I wasn’t free in that bar, you remember that? And I tried to tell you I was. But you were right. I  wasn’t . Even coming out like a fucking princess in that bar  didn't make me free. Not completely. But now I am. Not  gonna have a wife, not  gonna have Terry breathing down my neck every second or my brother’s getting into my shit.  It’ll just be me. Taking care of me. Figured if you were trying it, why shouldn't I?”

Ian swallows thickly and just stares at Mickey. “You  gonna get a dog with a little sweater too?”

Mickey laughs and thumbs his bottom lip. “Hey, you never know.”

Ian steps forward again and they are so close, their cold noses are touching. “Can I see your place?”

“Soon.” Mickey whispers and he almost hates himself for how Ian does this to him every time  he’s near him. Like he loses himself in Ian’s presence. Like  he’s not Mickey anymore.  It's like they are two  combined bodies.  Ianandmickey .  Ianandmickey . They begin and end in the same place. Always in the same place. “You said as long as it takes.”

Ian nods, his nose brushing up and down against Mickey’s. “I meant it.”

“Then just a little longer, okay? 

Ian moves his head up and presses a cold soft kiss to Mickey’s forehead. “Okay, Mick.”

*~*~*~*~*~

“You will see Yevgeny. Every other weekend. And you pay money. You help. I cannot do this alone. And when piece of shit father gets out, if he lays one hand on me you put bullet between eyes. Deal?”

Mickey presses the pen to the paper  probably harder than he should but he is just so fucking ready for this to be done. “Yeah, got it.” He pushes the paper across the table to her and for a  second, she looks...sad. “You never wanted this. I  ain’t gonna bail on the kid. Or you. I told you that.”

She nods, looking over at their kid in the high chair, banging a spoon loudly against it. She picks up the pen and signs, slamming it down onto the table. “You are free, piece of shit husband.”

“Ex-husband.”

Her eyes are shiny but no tears have fallen. They won't.  She’s tough and Mickey knows it. And she knows it. She  doesn’t need him, not really.  She’s never really needed anyone. But she  didn’t ask for this. And he  isn't about to fuck her over. 

“You run to carrot boy now? Suck dicks and live happily ever after?”

Mickey folds the divorce papers and shoves them into his back pocket. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He runs off with baby again I cut his dick off and shove it down his throat.”

“Yeah, I got it.” Mickey leans down and presses a kiss to his  sons' head. “I’ll be here next weekend for him. Call if you need anything.”

Svetlana nods, but doesn’t look back as he leaves. 

She’s gonna be fine. 

And  so, will Mickey.

*~*~*~*~*

The bell above the door  chimes when Mickey steps into the diner. Its busy, as usual, and he spots Fiona behind the counter and pushes his way through to the last empty stool before someone else can grab it. 

“Oh, hey.” She says when she spots him, eyes wide. “How you been?”

“Not bad.” He drums his fingers on the counter and tries to scan the diner,  nonchalantly . He finds Fiona smirking at him when he catches her eye again. 

“He’s taking the garbage out. I’ll get him.” She pats his hand once, before going into the back. Mickey is almost done with his cigarette when Ian comes in through the kitchen and spots him at the counter. He moves in close to him and his hand falls on the small of Mickey’s back. 

“Hey.” Ian breathes out. His body is cold from being outside which Mickey welcomes because suddenly he’s warm. 

“Hey.” Mickey licks his bottom lip and watches as Ian’s eyes darken for a second. “What time you done?”

“Like an hour.” Ian rubs 2 fingers in a circle over Mickey’s  coat. 

“Thought maybe you’d want to get a pizza and play some Call of Duty at my place?”

Mickey waits for Ian’s answer but instead Ian just leans in, pressing his mouth hotly against Mickey’s. It surprises him; Mickey jumping a bit at the sudden contact, but slowly melts against Ian’s lips. It doesn’t last long; maybe 15 seconds, but they are both flushed when it ends. Ian is smiling like a god damn idiot and Mickey doesn’t even need to see himself to know there is a blush across his cheeks and he feels good. He feels...free. He reaches for a napkin and plucks the pen out of Ian’s apron and jots down his address. 

“I’ll see  ya later.” He pushes the napkin into Ian’s chest and slides off the stool. “Bring some pie.”

Ian chuckles and clutches the napkin to his chest, like it’s some fucking love poem Mickey wrote him. “Okay.” He whispers. Mickey decides what the hell and leans up to push his lips against Ian’s in a closed mouth kiss and leaves before he can see Ian’s reaction. 

Mickey’s place  isn't far from the diner so when  there’s a soft knock on his door an hour and 10 minutes later, Mickey  can't help but smile as he opens the door. Ian’s cheeks are flushed and Mickey  doesn’t know if  it's from the  cold air or something else. Ian holds up a box which Mickey can tell is half of a blueberry pie from the top of it. “House warming gift from Fiona.”

“Half a fucking pie? Jesus.” Mickey snatches it from Ian’s hand and takes the 3 steps to the counter in the middle of the studio. 

“Hey at least it was free.” Ian shakes off his coat and unwraps his scarf, laying it over the back of the couch and looking around. “Wow.”

“Shit hole, right?”

“Kinda. But we could paint and put up some posters or something.”

“We?” Mickey leans against the counter and watches as the wheels behind Ian’s eyes turn as he inspects the small area. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You can help. Just not sure where to start or what I’m even allowed to do.” Mickey grabs two beers from the fridge and hands one to Ian. “You good to have one?”

“Yeah.” Ian takes it. “Just one though.”

“ So, the meds are good?” Mickey takes a long gulp of his beer, cheeks filled as he swallows slowly. 

Ian nods, taking his own small sip. “Yeah, I feel clear. Good. Started taking EMT courses.”

“Mm. Gonna shack up with Denzel?”

Ian laughs. “Nah, got a thing for this guy from the Southside.”

“That so?” Mickey shifts his body closer to Ian, his ass rubbing against the counter as he moves. 

“Yeah, been into him since I was a kid.  Can't shake it. Went through some  real tough shit. Just been waiting for him to take me back.”

Mickey takes another sip of his beer and eyes Ian over the mouth of the bottle. “Think maybe he was just waiting to make sure nothing could get fucked up again. Clean slate or some shit.”

Ian nods, finally moving to press his body up against Mickey’s. Mickey lets him; Mickey molding his body into Ian’s. Ian’s hand settles firmly on Mickey’s hip and he leans down to press his face into the curve of Mickey’s neck. “Maybe  it's what they both needed.”

“Maybe.” Mickey whispers, barely able to think with Ian this close. He smells like diner food and cigarette smoke but fuck he feels amazing pressed against Mickey. 

“I’m sorry.” Ian mumbles against his skin. “I don’t remember breaking up with you. And you’re right. Maybe I had my reasons at the time, but I don’t remember what they were, and I don’t want to. I know what I want. I know what I feel. And we both had time to figure it out and I still want you.” Ian pulls back. “I know why I stepped in front of that gun. I did it to protect you. And I’d do it again. Every fucking time.”

Mickey feels himself tremble and he brings his hand up to dig his fingers into the back of Ian’s head. He grips the long hair there and takes a deep breath into him. “I know. I’m sorry I made you wait so long. I just...”

“I know. I know.  Shhh .” Ian moves and before Mickey can blink Ian is kissing him, tongue already invading his mouth and the beer is long forgotten on the counter as both of Ian’s hands are now grabbing at Mickey’s hips and pulling him closer against him. Mickey lets Ian kiss him however he wants to, however he needs to. It feels the same but different. They know their way around each other this way;  it's like hearing your favorite song for the first time in years; and you remember why you loved it so much in the first place. 

Ian is here, in his own place, kissing him and grabbing his hips just the way Mickey likes and it's like they fit together in a way no two people should. They make absolutely no sense together, but so much so that it does make perfect sense. He has always heard the phrase two broken people  don’t make a whole person, but in their case, Mickey thinks  that’s a bunch of bullshit. Because the broken pieces are what make them fit. And  maybe they aren't so broken anymore.  Maybe the glue will hold this time. 

Ian breaks the kiss and pants against Mickey’s lips, eyes still closed. “Pizza?”

Mickey huffs out a short laugh and licks his lips. “Yeah, okay Gallagher. I know how you get if you don’t eat.”

“Am I spending the night? Cause that new bed looks real fucking comfortable.”

“Yeah, stole it from some North Side storage unit. It’s a fucking  queen, I think. Roomy as hell. But  kinda big for just one person.”

“ Mmm .” Ian licks the spot right under Mickey’s ear that drives him fucking crazy. “It needs to be christened.”

“I jerked off on it this morning. Probably got a few drops somewhere on it.”

“As hot as that is,  it's not fully christened until both of us have cum on it.”

Mickey shudders and pulls back and just licks into Ian’s mouth. Its dirty, and wet and so fucking good. Ian moans and grabs Mickey’s head with big hands and places one last smacking kiss against his lips before he steps back, breathing hard, and his tight jeans leaving nothing to the imagination on how turned on he is. 

“Pizza. Video games. And then fucking you into that mattress all night. In that order.” Ian counts on his fingers and reaches into his back pocket for his cell phone. “Extra Cheese and Peppers?” He scrolls on his phone and Mickey just  can't help the smile that is permanently etched on his face.

“Whatever you want, Gallagher.”


	5. At least I'm trying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes.
> 
> Trust is rebuilt.
> 
> New things are tried.
> 
> The future is endless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys this is it. The end. Thank you to EVERYONE who read this and commented. I enjoyed making my own canon for our boys. I hope you like how I wrapped this up. <3
> 
> I LOVE YOU ALL. 
> 
> Till next time ;)

“ Where’d you get the car?”

“Don't fucking worry where I got the car.”

“Mick, we’re living together now. Like officially. You can tell me if you stole a God Damn car or not.”

Mickey rolls his eyes and grips the torn leather on the steering wheel  tighter. “Bought it.”

“You bought a car.” Ian says slowly. 

“That’s what I fucking said.”

“You didn’t steal it. You like paid money. Like a legal transaction.” Ian sounds so...stunned. And it pisses Mickey the fuck off.

“Why is this so hard to wrap your  ginger head around?”

“Because!” Ian’s arms go into the air and  flail around in his typical dramatic fashion. “You’re Mickey  Milkovich . You don’t pay for shit!”

“Yeah, well. I do now.” Mickey turns onto a dirt road and squints through the dirty windshield,  the setting sun making it hard for him to see even more. “I think it's down here.”

“And I cannot believe you like...rented a cabin. On purpose. And paid for it, which I guess is just something you do now.”

Mickey slams on the brakes and even though Ian has h is seat belt on like a good little boy scout, he ricochets forward. “What the fuck!?”

“You honestly pissed about this, Gallagher? Because I can turn around right now and go home. We  don’t need to do this shit. I just thought you might  wanna get away for a  few days. Just you and me. Fuck and talk and shit.”

“You  wanna talk? You?”

“Fuck this.” Mickey spins the tires on the beat-up piece of shit car and turns the wheel so hard, the gears grind and something under the hood pops as he tries to turn around in one spin on the narrow road. 

“Mick, stop.  You’re gonna fuck up the car. Or hit a tree.  Kinda don’t  wanna die twice in one year.”

Mickey grips the gear shift and fucking glares at Ian. “You really are dead set on me punching you in the fucking face tonight,  a in’t you?” His teeth are clenched along with his fists and he could. He could punch Ian in the face right now and not feel bad about it. 

But then, Ian smiles. That toothy, flirty, tough guy smile he gives Mickey when  he’s teasing him and just trying to ge t under his skin. “Mickey.” He says softly. “You’re so easy to  rile up.”

Mickey shoves the car into park, right there in the middle of the road; half in the woods and in the middle of Christ knows where. He licks his bottom lip rests his hand over his jean ed crotch which is doing a shit job of covering his hard on. Ian’s eyes flick down and then his smile fades and that other look Mickey knows all too well, floods his face and before Mickey can even blink twice, Ian’s long fingers are fumbling with Mickey’s button and zipper and shoving his jeans down to his knees, taking his boxers along with them. His cock bobs out into cool air of the car; the car may work  alright , but the heat  doesn’t . 

Ian wastes no time leaning his tall frame over the center c onsole and just engulfs Mickey’s cock in one eager head bob. Mickey’s hips lift off the seat and the tip of his cock hits the back of Ian’s throat and he grips the long locks of red hair and moans so loudly, not even the metal and glass of the car could ke ep it inside.  It's hot intense heat and  suction around his dick as Ian just works him up and down with his mouth. Its sinful, really, how well Ian can suck a cock, but it's Mickey’s cock he’s sucking and he knows that no matter how much they fight and tease and have the same stupid fights over and over and they get their feelings hurt with trivial bullshit, his cock is the only one Ian’s going to be sucking for the rest of his life.

That was supposed to be the purpose of this weekend.  It's what Mickey was  go nna ask. If  that’s what Ian wanted, if Mickey offered it to him. Forever. Good, bad. Sickness, health. All that shit. He had tried to offer Ian the same shit  almost a year ago, before the world  almost literally ended for  both of them . But neither of them wa s ready then. And  maybe they aren't now either, but they are a hell of a lot closer than they were back then. 

Ian lets Mickey fuck his mouth; hard thrusts up into the warmth of his mouth as saliva dribbles down over his balls and onto the seat below him.  It's filthy and raw and animalistic the way Ian is sucking him off right now, but it's them. They fight to the point where it becomes foreplay because Ian  can’t resist when Mickey goes all Southside  thug on him and Mickey  can't resist him when Ian gets all  m outhy and pushes buttons just because he can.  It’s a weird attraction they both have, but it works. Because its them. And to Mickey, it's perfect. 

When a burst of  precum slides against Ian’s tongue, he moans around Mickey’s cock and  it's just two more thru sts and Mickey’s flooding his mouth with a high pitch  whine of Ian’s name, fogging up the windows even more. Ian leans up, licking a small drop of cum off his bottom lip and Mickey grabs him by the chin to smash their mouths together with nothing but tongu e; licking into each others mouths. Fuck, Mickey loves him. He  really fucking loves him. 

“I love you.” He whispers.  It’s a tiny sound from his throat, so high off his orgasm and vocal cords dry from groaning, but he says it right against Ian’s open lips an d even if he  didn’t hear it, he felt it escape off Mickey’s lips and onto his. Ian  literally gasps and wraps his hands around Mickey’s face, pressing his forehead so hard against his that he may have bruises tomorrow. It's the first time he's said it since that day on the sidewalk. He wasn't ready until now. He needed to be sure. 

“Yes, yes.” Ian keeps chanting, like  he’s answering a question Mickey  hasn’t even had the nerve to ask yet. But he knows what Mickey is saying in those 3 words. What  he’s promising. What has always been, even in their times apart, and what will always be even if they are ever apart again. 

“D idn't even get to ask you yet and you’re already beating me to the punch.” Mickey chuckles. Ian pulls back with wide eyes. He just shrugs at the question in Ian’s eyes and then there are tears where happiness and confusion just were and suddenly Mickey rea lizes  he’s engaged and it only took 15 seconds and a blow job. But that seems about right when it comes to the two of them but when people ask,  he’ll leave the orgasm out of it. They technically made it to the cabin, sort of, so it  won't totally be a lie. 

*~*~*~*

Mickey left the balcony door to the deck open when he had a cigarette in the middle of the night and now the cabin has a cold breeze invading the small space causing him and Ian to sink deeper and deeper into the mound of blankets on top of them. Not that  he’s complaining.  He’s comfortable, more than comfortable, and  he’d be happy to stay wrapped up in Ian’s octopus arms all fucking day. He can feel the cold metal against his hip and his dick twitches. The ring  wasn’t anything special; but Ian cri ed when Mickey put it next to his pill bottles on the counter when they unpacked last night for their 4 day, 3-night stay. This time Mickey blew him as Ian sat on the kitchen table and Mickey straddled a chair and took him so deep into his throat, it's  actu ally sore today. 

He keeps swallowing; morning breathe and parchment making it hard for him to fall back into sleep. He slowly untangles himself from Ian and shivers when the  cold air hits his naked skin. He hops to the sliding glass door and shoves it closed and takes one  of the blankets off the bed to wrap himself up and pads barefoot into the kitchen to see if he can remember how to use a coffee machine. The trees surrounding the cabin are shielding most of the morning light from drowning the inside of the cabin but there is a gentle breeze coming off the lake and the new leaves forming on the trees are spinning in the wind. 

Mickey has never really given much thought to how nature works. Seasons change.  It's cold, warm, hot, cool. It rains. It snows. He sweats.  It's just life. But for the first time  maybe ever in his life, he makes himself stare out into the open air of his surroundings because he can. He should. He  doesn’t want to take anything for granted anymore. And he wants to remember. He wants to hold this fee ling deep inside himself so he can recall it when things get rough again; because they will, it's him and  Ian after all ; so, he can know at this very moment, everything was perfect. That it is possible. And the  bad times won't always be bad. 

It's  sappy and  faggy and he should be cursing at the thoughts  he’s having because Mickey  Milkovich doesn’t wax poetic about the way the sunlight reflects off water or how  he’s never seen that kind of bird before in the dirt of the city. But there are arms folding themsel ves around him now, and a  pointy chin resting on his shoulder and a small kiss being placed on his own jaw and  yeah , everything is fucking perfect. 

“You left me.” Ian whines. Mickey just presses his cheek against his and points to the coffee machine bubbl ing away filling the cabin with the smell of it. “Don’t care. We had a deal. Bed all day. You promised.”

“We can still stay in bed all day, but we need coffee if you plan to fuck me till I can't stand up like _you_ promised.” Mickey shuffles toward the coffee, but Ian is still latching ont o him, moving with him as he goes. Mickey laughs and pushes his ass back which only causes a growl from behind him and it takes a minute in a half before  he’s on his back on the kitchen floor, legs in the air like some whore, with Ian shoving his bare cock into his already worn out hole. But Mickey is a whore, especially when it comes to Ian and his 9-inch cock.  He’s not ashamed, not anymore. He likes what he likes, and it may not make him a bitch per say, but  he’s Ian’s bitch and it's fine. Because Ian is h is bitch too. 

There’s a difference in Ian’s fucking now; he noticed it last night the first time Ian slid inside him after he slid that ring on his finger.  It's still rough and precise, like  it's always been. But Ian just keeps touching him; fingertips sl iding over every inch of Mickey’s skin and then pressing them so deep into his skin,  Mickey’s going to be touching the bruises for days, remembering.  It's not like Ian  hasn’t done that before, but usually they are on his hips or even on his neck. But these finger marks are on his chest and arms and even legs. Especially the inside of his thighs. Ian may have  pretty much written a  sonnet to them last night while he was between them, eating his ass. It was hot and Mickey may have made fun of him a  bit, becaus e he had to, but something has shifted between them.

The fucking is the same; Mickey’s being railed on the cold hard wood floor while the coffee machine beeps and his skin keeps making squeaking noises below him and all that feels exactly the same, but may be it's the ring on Ian’s finger that keeps clinking against the floor every time he tries to keep his arms held up over Mickey, or maybe it’s the fresh air or the sunlight or the silence of only them that they have never really had. 

Ian pulls out to cum  all over Mickey’s stomach and uses it to jerk Mickey off until he pulses and unloads into Ian’s palm.  He’s exhausted and he needs coffee and a cigarette and a hot shower but then Ian’s licking the cum off his hand and then his own cum off Mickey’s stomach  and he may spend the next half hour eating Ian’s ass over the kitchen table. 

*~*~*~*~

“Everyone is going to freak out.”

Mickey just hums and sips his beer as he gives Ian little  scritchy scratchys on his head as it lays in his lap. They are both still nak ed; neither of them bothering to put clothes on all day. They had coffee and breakfast on the deck, wrapped in their blankets and then took a long hot shower together and took a small nap before Mickey woke up to Ian’s mouth around his dick. Mickey rode hi m for  almost an hour; taking his time with his movements; pulling every single ounce of pleasure out of him and the man he now plans to marry under him. Ian gave Mickey full control with that fuck; his arms above his head and legs sprawled out like the gia nt he is. 

When Ian  cums , with one final deep thrust down from Mickey’s hips, Mickey felt the familiar sting of the bruises starting to form on his hips where they belong. 

“I don’t think everyone is going to be as surprised as you think.” 

Ian rolls over, head still on Mickey’s lap and looks up at him. “Did you like ask permission to marry me?”

“No, fuck off with that shit.” Mickey leans over the heavy body on him and grabs his cigarettes. “Just saying, this isn't surprising.”

“It surprised me.”

“Really?”  Mickey raises his eyebrows. 

“Everything you do surprises me.”

“Well, I got nothing else up my sleeve. You’re in for a long life of boring disappointment.” Ian just smirks and plucks the cigarette from Mickey’s fingers; something that used to piss him off  to no end, but now he secretly loves.  Maybe he always loved it. Who the fuck knows? “Might have told your brother.”

“I knew you and Lip would like each other one day.”

“Wouldn't go that far.”

The cigarette is passed back and forth till  it's down to the filter and Ian is the one who stubs it out before rolling back over onto his side so Mickey can keep scratching at his scalp. They stay like that for a long time in the silence. Mickey remembers  not long ago, when Ian  couldn’t stand the silence. He was always filling it up with jokes and stories and feelings. But he  doesn’t need to do that anymore. Mickey  doesn’t know if  it's the meds, or them finally settling into what they always could be, or if maybe they are just older now and a little more stable and there  doesn’t have to be so many words now. 

“You  gonna take my last name?” Old habits die hard, and Mickey rolls his eyes at the fact that Ian can never leave well enough alone. 

“You expect me t o be a Gallagher?”

“You expect _me_ to be a  _Milkovich_ ?”

“ Touche .”

“Well?”

“How about we hyphenate?”

“Whatever you want. Doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t lie. You  don’t gotta lie, Ian. If you want something say it.”

He rolls back over onto his back again and  looks up at Mickey, a soft expression on his face. “I want you. That’s it.”

“You got me.” Mickey shrugs. 

Ian smiles. “Yeah, I do. Don’t I?”

Mickey traces his finger along Ian’s jawline. “Yeah, tough guy. You got me.”

*~*~*~

Mickey fucks Ian for the first time that morning.  He’s been giving his ass special attention now ever since Ian moved in with him; more than he ever has before because well, he may be the neediest bottom that  probably ever existed and he  ain’t ashamed of that, but  he’s fucking gay and  he likes every part of a man. Especially every part of Ian.  He’s made Ian realize just how good it feels to have his ass played with over the past few months and when Mickey rubs his cock against Ian’s that morning, his legs fall open and he gives Mickey t his look that  he’s very familiar with because he taught him that look. Its the ‘I  wanna get fucked’ look and Mickey never knew how much he wanted it until Ian was willing to give it. 

It’s not so much the victory of it all, not anymore. It's more the fact o f trust on Ian’s part to let Mickey do this to him. To feel so comfortable and loved that all the past demons  aren’t scratching away in his brain anymore. Mickey  doesn't know everything Ian went through while they were apart. While Mickey was playing house with a whore and keeping his Dad happy so he  wouldn't get murdered. But he can imagine. There are things he may never know. And  that’s okay. Some things should be left behind;  he’s learned that the hard way. 

But Ian has let Mickey inside himself, in ever y other  possibly way that this is the last thing he can  possibly do to make them as connected as two people can be. Mickey eats his ass like he kisses him. Tender at first with long strokes of tongue. Then deeper and aggressive as the heat in his groin and need in his blood forces Ian’s legs wider and bruises to be left on the inside of his thighs. He slides inside Ian on their sides; he can deeper this way and he needs the weight of Ian still against him for this because as overwhelmed as Ian may feel in t he moment, it  doesn't compare to the way his own body is trembling. 

Ian is a fantastic lover.  He’s giving and has always had pin point accuracy. Mickey’s always been the awkward one when it came to sex;  not quite sure how to ask for what he wants and afra id to get it once he does. But Mickey finds that Ian is as good as a bottom as he is a top; receptive to every thrust with soft moans and grips of his fingers along the back of Mickey’s thighs. He pushes back when Mickey slows down; needing him as deep as  he can go. Mickey never understood Ian’s fascination with the way he smelled, but with Ian pinned against his front so he can press his face right into the curve of Ian’s neck, he suddenly understands.

Ian smells like home. 

When Ian  cums , his whole body c onvulses and Mickey watches as he spurts onto the blue sheets of the bed and he’s 2 thrusts behind him; burying himself so deep inside Ian that Ian shudders one last hard shiver because he’s hit that spot inside him, dead on, and Ian  cums a second time; ju st a few dribbles from the head of his cock. 

Ian whispers to him to stay inside him and Mickey does. When they wake later  he’s eventually slid out but they  haven't moved a t all . His hand is still intertwined with Ian’s against his stomach and he can fe el the ring pressed into his skin.  He’s his. He wants to be his. And it's terrifying and amazing all in one feeling wrapped up in a tall ginger molded against his body. He presses a soft kiss to freckled skin and  Ian’s soft ass pushes back against him and he  can’t help but  literally giggle at that. 

“Who’s a needy bottom now?”

“Don’t get a big head. You’re still the bottom in this relationship.”

“Fuckin’ better be.”

Ian rolls a little and looks over his shoulder. “Can we get married as soon as we leave here?”

Mickey brushes the hair off his forehead. “Thought you’d want some big gay wedding.”

He just shakes his head. “No. Just  wanna be married to you as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“Made you wait a long time, huh?”

“It’s okay. It was worth i t.”

“Yeah? You think? We both got shot.”

Ian laughs, flipping so he can face Mickey and press their foreheads together. “ Love is a battlefield.” 

He earns a slap to his ass for that and then the re is a wrestling match for dominance that Mickey lets him win.  They stare at each other for a while; fingertips brushing against patches of skin and Mickey knows the battle  isn’t over. There will still be pain and days when Ian  won’ t be able to get out of bed. Their will be mistakes made on both sides. Things will brea k; hearts, bones,  plates and glasses; but they will try, like they always did. They will keep going, through it all, because being apart is worse.

This is them trying. 

And they will try, forever. 

And  that’s all of they ever really needed. 


End file.
